Dance?
by singinilovebooks
Summary: Most of the trio's year returned to Hogwarts for their 8th year. During a party, Pansy wants to dance with a certain Head Girl. Full summary inside. I do not own Harry Potter. One-shot. Complete. T for alcohol and partying.


Summary: In the end, many of the trio's year returned to Hogwarts for their 8th year to complete their education, the three included. All were put into a new Common Room, due to a lack of space in the house common rooms and a hope for inter-house friendships and solidarity. Throughout the year, the muggleborns tried to explain the idea of parties, muggle style, to the rest of the year during times when they were bored. They were shot down each time. Now, however, everybody is pulling out the alcohol, ready to party themselves into oblivion. In the midst of this, Pansy wants to dance with a certain Head Girl.

* * *

Hermione looked around at her classmates, all approaching drunk out of their minds. While she had promised that she wouldn't use her Head Girl authority to shut the party down, she had made it clear that she had no intentions to participate and would be casting sobering charms to ensure that nobody got too drunk. (Too drunk was a loose definition. They could get pretty drunk without her doing anything. Not that they realized that.) Now, many were disappointed with this for two reasons: one, they wanted to be able to get as drunk as they liked, and two, with the exception of Harry and Ron, none of them had every seen her even the slightest bit inebriated. But, as there was no way for them to make her do anything else, they continued on. Hermione continued to watch from the sidelines, sending her drunk friends back into the crowd every time they tried to get her to come join them. It was tiring being the only sober person, but somebody needed to chaperone. (She also knew she tended to say things she preferred to keep to herself when truly drunk.)

The one exception was when Harry, Ron, and Draco all stumbled out of the crowd around the same time to give her the same message: "Pansy wants to dance with you but she's too chicken to ask you herself." This was how Draco said it-he was the most sober. Wicked hangovers were not his thing. Harry and Ron had both fallen into giggles more than once trying to convey the message. She cast sobering charms on both of them before they went back into the crowd-they needed it. Ron didn't notice, but Harry did. "Thanks," he said, then gave her a significant look. "Go get her."

He knew of her feelings, though Ron did not. He was more perceptive now than he had once been. Harry had brought her the message because he knew she needed prompting, they both did, but Ron had brought it as a laugh because he was too drunk to understand what it really meant. Draco had brought the message because he knew how Pansy felt for Hermione and was going to make sure that she at least had her chance.

So Hermione caught Draco by the shoulder before he disappeared back into the crowd.

"Where?"

As he pointed to a section of the crowd, she nodded and let him go, beginning to head towards where she could now see glimpses of Pansy. He smiled as he watched her shoot off. She got a few surprised looks as she waded into the crowd, most notably from the girl she was looking for.

"Uh, Hermione! I wasn't really expecting to see you out here! What-what brings you?" the normally eloquent girl stuttered.

"A little birdie told me you wanted to dance, and I maybe want to dance with you too." Hermione was more articulate. She, after all, was neither surprised nor drunk.

The muggle saying meant little to Pansy. "Little birdie?"

"A couple friends of yours and mine. Not important." Pansy just bobbed her head in response, reaching hesitantly for Hermione's hands. She gave them eagerly, though she wasn't entirely sure how they were meant to dance. That was okay, though, because Pansy didn't know either, so there was a lot of giggling and starts and stops and staring when the other wasn't looking. When some students began to heckle them, for the most part jokingly, Pansy kept whispering to just ignore them, but Hermione couldn't in the state she was in. "I'm too sober for this."

Immediately, several drinks were shoved her way-everyone wanted to see her at least a bit tipsy and loose. Pansy glared at every hadn't stretched out with a drink and pressed her own into Hermione's hand.

A smile graced the Head Girl's lips and she took a sip. A few more glares from the pair (as well as Harry and Draco), got everybody moving and their attention was forced elsewhere.

"Can I kiss you?" Pansy asked, staring at Hermione's lips as they swayed slowly even as the music and everything around them moved at a near frenzied pace. Hermione's responding nod came quickly but went shyly. They leaned together, uncaring of the party in their little corner. The kiss was short, but it left deep blushes on the cheeks of both witches.

* * *

Later, when Hermione was cleaning up after sending her new girlfriend to bed, Harry came up to her, showing signs of having been rather sloshed before a few good sobering charms. (She thought those might be courtesy of Draco. He was rather talented at them.) "So," he began, "Worth it?" He meant the pining. Because of course she had pined. It made sense. What were the chances her crush liked girls and was into her? Not high, but here they were.

"Absolutely."

"You know, while we had our doubts, this interhouse common room was actually a good idea," Harry mused.

Hermione snorted. "You and Ron had your doubts. It only made logical sense. There isn't space for us in house common rooms. We always needed to get to know people in other houses better." She had been concerned only about how Harry, Ron, and Draco would deal with it. They were, after all, the least mature in their year, at least when it came to each other. Harry had matured, though. His saving Draco from the Room of Requirement the year before had shown that. So they got along now, but she had something much better than getting along. She had a girlfriend. And that, too, was a step above her friends currently. She had a girlfriend. She couldn't stop smiling at the thought.

* * *

Pansy would wake up the next day and hope that the events of the night before weren't just a brilliant dream, and when she would go to find Hermione to check, she would be greeted by a grin, a shy kiss on the cheek, and the happy notion that it had not, after all, been a dream.


End file.
